


To Love the Questions Themselves

by HopefulNebula



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alethiometer Use, Gen, Loss of Parent(s), POV Third Person, Past Tense, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 06:30:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8834026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/pseuds/HopefulNebula
Summary: Several years after the end of the series, Lyra finally decides to ask the alethiometer about her parents' fate. The answer, as always, is made of more questions.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [finch (afinch)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/gifts).



Pantalaimon climbed from his spot on the table to Lyra's shoulder and nipped gently at her ear.

"Maybe it would be better not to know," he whispered. "It wouldn't change anything."

Lyra wavered for a moment. She knew Pan's real worries. While it was obvious at this point that her parents wouldn't be returning to this world, and she'd have legal standing to inherit (from Lord Asriel, at least) once she came of age regardless of their actual fate, she had a good idea of what the alethiometer would be telling her. As long as she didn't have that certainty, the truth could still be whatever she wanted it to be.

"Yes, Pan," she replied. "I think... I think in the end, it's better to _know_ than not." Besides, Dame Hannah had only just allowed her unsupervised access to the books of readings, and only intermittently. This was something she needed to find out privately.

Pan nuzzled Lyra's cheek with his, a silent assent, and they began.

She briefly considered asking about both parents, but decided it would be simpler to seek only one answer at a time.

The question itself was simple, and Lyra held it firmly in her mind as she turned the knobs. The wild man was her father, the alpha and omega symbolized happenings in all their forms, and the thunderbolt meant fate. They kept their customary poses keeping watch over the moving needle as the response came, with Lyra jotting down notes and Pan keeping in his memory anything Lyra might miss.

The response was as swift and as complicated as they had expected; this was one of the readings where Lyra truly missed her childhood intuition. She had, however, grown proficient at writing notes while keeping her gaze fixed on the tool before her.

As the needle stopped its deliberate motion, Lyra and Pan turned to those notes and carefully looked up the meanings behind what they had seen.

The wild man was first, four meanings deep, meaning father. Then the Madonna once (motherhood) and the ant, six times, for unity.

So they were together.

The next symbol was one Lyra knew all too well -- two stops on the hourglass, for death -- but it was followed by twelve stops on the moon. That one was the subject of much commentary in the books. Khunrath himself had thought it symbolized eternal change, but later scholars were divided as to what type of change it meant exactly, and to what other parts of the answer it applied. She'd have to go back to that one later. Perhaps the Master of Jordan would have some insights when they next met.

The loaf of bread three times, for sacrifice, was next, followed by the sword for justice and the helmet for war. The alethiometer had sped through these as if they were obvious. (Lyra supposed they were, for Lord Asriel, but she had to wonder what would make them apply to both her parents together.)

The next group of symbols was more complicated. The needle had paused after its fifth stop on the globe, in the way Lyra had come to understand meant a plural. _The worlds._ The sword, six times, for _not._ The sun, five times, for _a leader._

"It says 'a particular king or leader'," Pan said, and the books indeed went into depth about interpreting the specific leader who was meant. From the next symbols, they gathered that it was referring to the voice (lute, nine stops) of the angels (the bird, ten stops).

The alpha and omega (sixteen stops) came after that, for the kind of infinity that encompassed time and space, followed by the crucible, for accomplishment. Lyra looked at this part of her notes and muttered, "So they did together what they set out to do, and it will last forever?"

Pan, in his turn, said "Or it helped all the worlds. Think of the globe..."

There was only one more set of symbols. The candle twice meant faith, the tree (twenty-three times) meant an ongoing gift, and the baby--

The realization settled between them in an instant. Lyra gasped, and Pan dug his claws into her shoulder. While she would never be able to effortlessly read the alethiometer as she once had, she still had occasional moments of sheer certitude when doing readings, and this was one of those.

"They sacrificed themselves for me," she breathed, not daring to put voice to the whispers. "They did whatever they did so we could have a chance."

Pantalaimon clung to Lyra and spoke softly into her ear. "This still doesn't change anything else we know."

That was true. Asriel Belacqua and Marisa Coulter had both done terrible things, and not just to Lyra. They had kidnapped and murdered children. They had sought power and influence regardless of cost. Lyra could forgive much of their deceptions, but the faces of Roger Parslow and Tony Makarios would haunt her for the rest of her life. For a long while there had been only anger for that. But they had both cared for Lyra in their own way, and the more she learned, the more room there was for other feelings as well.

"No, it can't change anything. But it gives us context for what we _do_ know. And there's a lot to learn about this answer yet. But this means... this means their end, at least, was just."

"We're the proof that whatever they did, it wasn't in vain," Pan added.

Lyra felt an odd sensation in her mind, one she'd only experienced a few times before and never in this context. It was as if the world was expanding before her, and while she couldn't see all of it just yet, it was fitting together in ways she knew she could understand if she really looked.

She had asked a single question, that was all, and in the answer to that lay the seed of a thousand more questions. Even the simplest truth had infinite complexities behind it.

She could learn to be content with these beginnings, at least for now. To reach the end she sought, she would have a lot of work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic's title comes from Neil deGrasse Tyson: "When I reach for the edge of the universe, I do it knowing that along some paths of cosmic discovery, there are times when, at least for now, one must be content to love the questions themselves."


End file.
